for those who love good prose...
Suprose aims to encourage and support literature, authors, books and audiences of SA prose. Think of this as a watering hole where conversations begin and friendships develop.

What is Suprose?

Welcome to Suprose.

Why Su-prose? "Su" in Sanskrit is a prefix for "good". This is a place where we will discuss and analyze prose (with a South Asian Connection) - that which is good, awesome, excellent, and maybe rant about prose that could be better.

Whether you love prose, are a prose expert, or want to learn more about prose, or to put it simply want to have anything to do with prose, this blog is for you.

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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

"It's the last day of April, it's April 30th" screamed my 5 year old daughter from the back seat of the car as I was driving her to school.

I was feeling gloomy, what with it being another grey day, cloudy, rainy very cold and wet. I had just turned the heat on.

"Yes, sweety and a very gloomy and rainy day it is," I replied to her.

With that lovely smile on her face, her eyes twinkling, she gave me a glorious reply.

"Yes, but remember, April showers brings May flowers, I cannot wait to see all the flowers blooming and the lovely sunshine soon."

That was when I noticed the flaming yellow forsythias everywhere, the daffodils lining the streets. How easy it is for us to see the darkness and the gloom, we miss the beauty around. We forget that April showers do really bring May flowers, it took a 5yo to remind me of that!

Monday, April 14, 2014

I first took a "character" class with Lisa Borders a few years ago at a wonderful writing organization called Grubstreet. I came away completely intrigued with her lucid and simple explanations of characterization. A read through of her fiction will endorse her characterization expertise.

The characters in her fabulous second novel, The Fifty First State, are full of life and natural presence. One of the key characters in the novel, Ram, is South Asian, and Lisa's finesse is evident with this character as well.

Lisa is an MA in Creative Writing from Temple
University in Philadelphia. She is the author of two novels,The
Fifty-First State and Cloud Cuckoo
Land. Given her busy teaching, writing and current book promotion
schedule, Suprose is honored that she set aside time for a Tête-à-Tête and answered all our questions so patiently!

Why did you decide to become a writer?

I resisted becoming a writer, at least professionally, for a
very long time. I grew up in a family that considered artistic pursuits
impractical, and because I was also strong in the sciences when I was in
school, I was a biology major in college, with plans to become a veterinarian.
I had always written from a very young age, and took creative writing workshops
in college as electives, but it wasn’t until I took the GREs my senior year
that I realized I didn’t want to apply for vet school. I wanted to write. I
became a journalist at first because it seemed the most pragmatic way to be a
writer, but eventually, my desire to write fiction took over.

Why did you decide to use a South Asian character in your
novel?

I didn’t set out to have a South Asian character initially. There was a
time when another character in my novel, Todd Schwegel, had the same function
in the book as my Indian character, Ramesh Rao. But something wasn’t quite working
with that version of Todd. I knew he felt very separate from the rest of the
rural South Jersey town where he’d grown up, but as I’d initially written him,
it didn’t quite make sense. I also had never been able to picture Todd the way
I could picture my other characters. I had this very dramatic moment on a train
ride from Boston to New York when I pictured my character wading out of a
creek, and I saw that he was Indian. At first I resisted the idea, afraid I
wouldn’t be able to write him convincingly. But the more I resisted it, the
more I realized that the character had to be Indian. So I stopped struggling
and started researching!

Is this the first time you introduced a character with a
non-American background? Please tell us about other ethnic characters you have
introduced in your work.

Many (possibly most) American writers are terrified to write
outside of their own ethnicities, and I certainly share some of those fears.
The backlash is huge for any writer who gets it wrong – and that backlash is
usually quite justified, but it has a chilling effect on the imaginative life
of many authors. It would be easier for me to just write white characters, I
suppose, but I live in a diverse world, and my characters inhabit diverse
worlds. So I’ve struggled with how best to represent that. The narrator of my
first novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, is a young woman named Miri Ortiz. I chickened
out a bit in creating her, though: her father was Mexican, but she was raised
by her mother and grandmother, who are not Latina. Ram in The Fifty-First State
is the first ethnic character I’ve had the courage to really commit to.

How does one go about understanding a new culture and the
more subtle nuances of other societies when creating characters?

Talking to – and reading books written by – members of that
culture are two ways to understand
those nuances, I think. Since my character is Indian-American, born in the
States, I didn’t feel the need to go to India for research – though I’d love to
visit one day!

You also bring in Ram’s family into the novel and write
about them very naturally… Explain this to us, why Rams family was drawn into
this story…

I’m always interested in the seeds of characters, and how
chance utterances or encounters can plant those seeds. The crux of my
understanding of Ram and his family comes from something a former boss of mine,
a pathologist, once told me. He had been raised Hindu and vegetarian, in India,
but when he went to medical school a Western diet was more in vogue. He’d
continued eating meat out of convenience after he moved to the States. He’d
told me this story in the context of my own vegetarianism; it intrigued me that
he was raised with this moral code he still believed in, but wasn’t quite
following. I decided that Ram’s parents, both doctors who moved to the States
for medical school, would have started eating meat after they came over here.
But their son, born in America, grew up and decided to embrace vegetarianism as
well as environmentalism. I saw it as causing a strange tension and rift
between them; Ram’s parents don’t disagree with his choices from a moral
standpoint, but they are immigrants who want to blend in, and their son has
chosen not only not to blend in, but to be a vocal activist. They are proud and
slightly embarrassed at the same time, I think.

There is a huge debate around using non-English terminology
and having to explain that. What are your thoughts on using non-English words
and the need to explain some of these terms when writing fiction for a
mainstream American audience?

This was a problem I didn’t face in my novel, since both of
my narrators speak only English. When my character Hallie hears Ram’s parents
speaking to him in Telugu, for example, Ram’s sister has to translate for her.
But as a reader, I love it when authors use non-English words in such a way
that I can figure out the meaning from the context. Junot Diaz does this
masterfully in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I don’t speak Spanish, and
I don’t know the meanings of a lot of the words he uses, but I can figure most
of it out from context, and it really doesn’t bother me that I don’t know
exactly what every word means. I think non-English words are often necessary
for authenticity, and I’d rather not have the narrative interrupted with
definitions.

What are some of your characterization pet peeves…. Things
that writers should look for when developing strong characters in their work.

The great E.M. Forster said, “The test of a round character
is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never
surprises, it is flat. If it does not convince, it is flat pretending to be
round.” I think some writers fall into that “flat pretending to be round” trap
by imposing a bunch of traits on a character but not thinking deeply about the
character’s psychology and family background, about the reasons why a real
person would have those traits. We are all full of contradictions, but those
contradictions should make a certain sense for our individual psychologies.

This conversation surrounding the need for an MFA in order
to become a good writer. What are some of your thoughts on that?

There are things one can learn from an MFA program, but how
to be a good writer isn’t always one of them! To become a good writer, one
needs to write regularly and read voraciously. There’s no magic, and no
shortcut to the process. Studying writing – whether in an MFA program or at a
center like Grub Street, where I teach – can certainly help, but I wouldn’t say
it’s impossible to become a good writer without formal study. Feedback on a
work in progress is vital, though that can be accomplished in many ways, not
only in an MFA program.

You read a lot of "wannabe" writer’s manuscripts. Can you list
the top five common things that stand out in terms of the need for improvement.

Not sure if I have five, but I’ll tell you the most common
problem: a lack of tension. I see plenty of writing that’s superficially adept
– strong sentences, perhaps even beautiful ones, and things are happening from
a plot perspective – but nothing much is at stake for the characters. Tension
and stakes are what keep readers turning the pages, and I think it’s a bit
arrogant to expect someone to read a 300-page novel simply because the
sentences are pretty or the dialogue is snappy. The reader needs more than
that. The stakes don’t have to be life or death, but they should feel urgent to
the character.

Another common problem, especially among literary writers,
is not having enough of a plot. These writers may have thought their characters
out well enough to have a lot at stake for them, but no idea of how to get from
Point A to Point B. If you feel like you’re meandering aimlessly as you write your
draft, that will most likely be the reader’s experience as well. Time spent
plotting a novel is time well spent – though for many writers, myself included,
it’s not as much fun as other aspects of writing.

Who are some of your favorite authors? Please list South
Asian authors separately.

There were a crazy number of great novels that came out in
the past year or so, and I have a stack full of signed copies I can’t wait to
read: Daphne Kalotay’s Sight Reading, Nan Cuba’s Body and Bread and Ellen Litman’s
Mannequin Girl, to name a few. I’m also dying to get to Donna Tartt’s The
Goldfinch and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s Plato at the Googleplex.

Which are some well worn out books on your book shelf? Your
go to books in times of anxiety and the need for inspiration.

My Collected Works of Flannery O’Connor is about to fall apart,
I’ve cracked it open so many times. Ditto Nabokov’s Pale Fire. And there’s this
great collection of short stories by Laurie Colwin called The Lone Pilgrim. The
title story in particular is one I reread when I’m feeling down.

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Page

What are some things you do to overcome “writers block”?

I don’t believe in writer’s block. I think sometimes life
intrudes on writing time, but that’s very different from being “blocked.”
Scheduling writing at times that work best for the individual writer (not
necessarily the times the writing books say to do it) can be very helpful to
those struggling to get work done. But if “writer’s block” means one’s brain is
suddenly devoid of ideas, I really don’t understand that. How can that be the
case if one still has a pulse?

Would you recommend reading any specific authors, those
whose works you believe have very strong characters…. Ones that young writers can
learn characterization from?

My go-to novels to teach characterization are Jonathan Franzen’s
The Corrections and Elizabeth Strout’s Amy and Isabelle. Great, complex
portraits of people in both of those books. But really, all the novelists I
mentioned as my favorites are adept at creating convincing characters.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” —Mark Twain

Thursday, April 10, 2014

100 days into the 365 Days of Inspiration, I have to reiterate a very simple statement... And this is truly the key to success, whether you are a writer, any other creative professional, or anyone who has goals.

Monday, April 7, 2014

How does a comic book creator keep churning out ideas, all of them creative and stupendous???

Fast Company magazine says, "Kelly Sue Deconnick has become one of the comic-book industry's
most sought-after creators--perhaps because she's (seemingly) never short on
great ideas. Here are her techniques for churning out great work, even when the
muse has gone silent."

Rise up this mornin',Smiled with the risin' sun,Three little birdsPitch by my doorstepSingin' sweet songsOf melodies pure and true,Sayin', "This is my message to you-ou-ou:"

Singin': "Don't worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!Every little thing gonna be all right. Don't worry!"Singin': "Don't worry about a thing" - I won't worry!"'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."

Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,'Cause every little thing gonna be all right" - I won't worry!Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."Singin': "Don't worry about a thing, oh no!'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!